This is a bit of an angry rant. I apologize for that. If you don't want to read on, here's the gist--if you haven't done it or haven't seen it done first hand, don't be giving advice! Something I've come to hate are armchair craftsmen and google/wiki scholars.

I'll confess I've been guilty of it. It was even encouraged at a hardware store I worked at. I didn't know anything about woodworking at 17, but people asked me for advice like I should know. We were supposed to know. My bad advice was responsible for more than a few returns. Thankfully no injuries.

But I think I know better now at 30.

For the purposes of this post, I'm only going to use metalworking examples.

I want to bring up some advice a former member gave here once. Now, I like this member, he's a good guy. If he's reading this, I hope he doesn't mind that i'm using him as an example. I think he would approve.

Someone once asked if titanium would survive a cone 6 kiln firing. It won't. It will probably burn. This member didn't believe that since he observed that it didn't melt until much hotter, but I've seen it happen. Google "LA Titanium fire" if you've got a strong constitution. Titanium burns before it melts.

I was 16 or 17 and was very generously given a titanium bar by someone who wanted to encourage my metalwork. I tried to forge it. Didn't really move well and cooled off almost immediately (no thermal mass). So I cranked up the blower and tried to get it to bright yellow heat. I pulled out a sparkler that wouldn't stop burning! I tried to put it out in water and that made it WORSE! I panicked, plunged the rod into my mother's garden, and ran into the house to hide. If a metalworker asks, I'll say I've never worked with titanium because I'm too embarrassed by that incident.

I know a few smiths who started up not too too long ago--about the same time I got back into the craft. They had the same typical learning curve of any ambitious young metalworkers. Learning that cutting corners doesn't make a good knife. Learning that you've got to use a centre punch if you want your drill bit to sit still. Learning about basic hammer control and technique. There's only a handful of ways to swing a hammer so that you don't ruin your arm swinging it for 8-12 hours a day, 5-7 days a week.

But at some point they started bypassing that. One started teaching classes. This put a knot in my gut. He knew the stuff in theory, but he didn't have the shop experience or self-evaluative tools to back it up. Shop practice is a big deal, for metalwork and ceramics. Things like not grinding aluminum and iron in the same go ('cause that's a recipe for thermite!). Proper ventilation (no grinders in the basement!). Proper casting safety (molten metal doesn't behave like water!). Proper chemical and scrap storage (that's how the LA titanium fire got started). This stuff doesn't come from books, it comes from knowing your materials and work environment.

Here's an example from a different person. A beginner wanted to learn to forge brass. That's fine, people do that. However, forgeable brass is hard to find, and brass has a bad tendency to off-gas zinc vapour. No good. I know people who have died from zinc poisoning. I advised that cold forging bronze would be better--heat the bronze to red heat, cool, and hammer till it gets stiff, then reheat, cool, etc. I didn't say "cold forging" though, I just thought it was clear from the context. Someone said "wait, you can't hot forge bronze, he should hot forge brass, it's easy, forges like butter. Just heat to 600C, to avoid zinc fumes, and hammer away."

This would have been good advice except for one thing--no beginner in the history of ever has a way to determine 600C. It's the same colour as room temp brass. And there are no fixed temp electric kilns or pyrometers available at the local hardware store. Tin bronze, on the other hand, doesn't have the off-gassing problems of zinc in brass, since tin doesn't boil until much much hotter. It's a very easy thing for a beginner to heat bronze to red heat, quench, and forge.

So there's my rant. I hope you see the point of it. Books and Google will only get you so far, and then they get you into trouble--or other people into trouble, if you're only using Google and books to give advice. Don't get other people into trouble, please?

As in anything with the internet, multiple sources, a skeptical questioning mind, and intelligent reflection are important tools to learn more about a subject. As to shortcuts, like in driving, the shortest route for one will not be the shortest for another. I find my own shortcuts every day I throw, from the form of the first piece to the last, explaining them would not work unless you were there for the whole process.

Babs, I agree whole-heartedly. The issue for me, and the reason for me posting this can be summed up with a slight modification of that final line.

"I don't know but I'd like to help with finding an answer" is worlds apart from "I'll help to find you an answer." It's the latter that gets me irate. As it can lead to a situation worse than the blind leading the blind--the blind being led by someone in denial about the severity their own myopia.

Things like not grinding aluminum and iron in the same go ('cause that's a recipe for thermite!).

You just gave me a great idea for a new product. Aluminum and iron blades. Just scrape a few times on a hard surface, and you've got the closet thing, we'll probably ever have, to an actual lightsaber.

Also, I agree with Babs' post. I've learned, there is nothing wrong with telling the students that you don't know something. Now, I will say, that when I offer to look into something, it's not an in depth, technical process, like you mentioned Tyler. Usually, it's just the origin of a term, or something of the like.

Just a side here, back in the early days I worked for an aircraft factory in NY. It made parts for gunships, and also made ag cats. Titanium is the only metal we got in that was already primed, as it protected the surface from spark. We did play with scraps and shavings at times-pyrotechnic!

Tyler, I think it's necessary that, from time to time, one or the other should bring up that theme (rant) of yours. It is important that people get the advise to only give advise, if one has a knowledge (out of experience!). Questions like: should the wheel turn clockwise or counterclockwise we all here on the forum can answer. But if a question concerns chemical elements, salts, minerals, metals etc., most of us should let the real (again, out of experience or schooling) experts answer those questions.

And, of course, what John said: check the source.

Thank you for being so honest in telling us your embarrassing stories. Great way to learn being humble!

On this forum I get some insight into the mysteries of our art by the input of experts and everyone else. it's the discussion of the question asked which takes all of us a few steps along the road to understanding. And so we all learn.

There is a bit about 'Leave it to the experts" philosophy which doesn't sit easily with my way of learning.

Yeh, keep the fingers out of the fan, but put a toe, or foot into the water.

An analogy in the medical field would be of the mother who senses that her baby is not well, goes to the expert who assures her all is well, but it isn't!

We need to keep learning. If the advice or opinion given is not helpful or not correct the moderators of these forums do come in and give great explanations of what is going on.

I have been working in clay for 4+ decades but I can honestly say there are many things I don't know. There are many things I do know.

I taught ceramics at the college level for 25 year and tried to encourage students to develop their own intellectual curiosity, experiment and discover. Ceramics is almost infinite in directions, possibilities , chemical combos, kilns, burners, drafts, pits, etc.etc. The benefit of the forum where there are so many willing to pitch in makes the potential for someone with the experience to have an answer.

I taught Computer animation for the last 15+ years of my career. I told my students that I knew very little about computers, and computer animation, and that we were all learning together. If they found something out that I did not know, to let me know. It wasn't hard to become a "silent" expert. The kids, yeah in the end they knew who could solve most if not all of their problems, but let them run on their own.

I agree with vetting one's sources and reviewing other's experiences to help one along his/her own path. Yet I want to be the Devil's advocate for a moment.

1. The US government paid millions in grants to Universities such as MIT to develop a blue laser. They were not able to do it. The laser was developed by an engineering hobbiest in his garage working on a shoe string budget. He was not constrained by conventional thought within the field.
2. Columbus discovered the "new world" against the advise of the scholars of his time.
3. Soft white bar soap was discovered by mistake when a batch of soap was left in the mixing machine overnight causing it to be whipped up.
4. I have framed a quote from Dan Bennett PhD, University of Chicago:
"How monotonous the sounds of the forest would be if the music came only from the Top Ten birds."

There is something to be said for fresh eyes and minds in one's field which have not been limited by conventional constraints. This may be why most great ideas for new inventions are conceived by people before their 30th birthday....they don't know it's not possible.

Don't disregard ideas from the untrained too quickly. Their voices add to the music of the forest.

Not discarding ideas from the "untrained". The point is that it is okay to say I don't know, and if you DON'T know, don't pretend that you do and spout off something someone told you this one time as if you have any experience in the matter. If you don't know, leave the matter to someone who does. Or, at the very least, say "I don't have any experience with this, but could ____ work?" if you feel you have something valuable to contribute.

Nothing wrong with the untrained coming up with ideas. That should always be encouraged and never be squashed. But ideas and theories are just that. Until they have been proven they should not be told as fact.